Romela Thapar, one of the leading historians of India, wrote a book on the Somanatha temple after a research and points out that the contemporary historians do not mention the demolition of the temple. Thapar, on the basis of Jain inscriptions and other Sanskrit sources, writes that in these documents there is no mention that Ghaznavi demolished the temple.

The story of demolition of temples and breaking of idols was also publicised during the British period. When the British attacked Afghanistan in 1842, they announced that they would bring back the gates of the temple which were taken away by Mahmud. When the gates were brought back to India it was found that they were not made by the Indian craftsmen. So they were put in a store at Agra.

With the passage of time, different opinions about Mahmud Ghaznavi have arisen. According to one, he was the invader who razed Hindu temples, looted their wealth, dishonoured their gods and deities, and damaged the Indian society and left the country in a state of desolation.

According to others, he was a competent general and a brave person who was not defeated by his adversaries. Besides being a general, he was also a great ruler who built a great empire in a short span of time.

Yet to others, his main motive to invade India was to plunder thewealth in order to use it for the conquest of the Central Asia and, that was why, he restored the rulers to their kingdoms after defeating them and taking as much wealth as he could.

Besides wealth, Mehmud also took away a number of artisans to make Ghazni, his capital, beautiful by building palaces gardens and other monuments. As he was an empire builder, he was not religious extremist and employed Hindu soldiers in his army.

As Mahmud included Punjab in his empire, the city of Lahore emerged as a prominent city where poets and scholars arrived from different parts of the Muslim world and settled there. Persian became the official language of the court and the Arabic was reduced to a religious medium only, because of his patronage of the former.

His period was known as the period of revival of the Persian language. The famous Shahnama of Firdousi was written during his period. Firdousi, the pseudonym Abu Ol-qasem Mansur, was a Persian poet who wrote the ancient history of Iran thus provided Iran a historical identity.

The conquests of Mahmud provided an opportunity to famous philosopher Al-Beruni (D/1030) to come to India and learn Sanskrit from Brahmans and acquired knowledge about Hidnu philosophy and customs. His book Kitab al Hind is a great source on Indian philosophy. It provided an understanding to the Muslim world about India and its culture.